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Oakland City Council Resolution No. 86 5 £1 C.M.S

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Oakland City Council Resolution No. 86 5 £1 C.M.S FILED OFFICE OF THE ern CLERK Approved as to Form and Legality OAKLAND 16 DEC-8 PM/li'IS City\Attorney's Office OAKLAND CITY COUNCIL RESOLUTION NO. 86 5 £1 C.M.S. INTRODUCED BY COUNCILMEMBERS DAN KALB AND REBECCA KAPLAN RESOLUTION (1) IN SUPPORT OF SENATOR BARBARA BOXER'S BILL TO ABOLISH THE ELECTORAL COLLEGE AND (2) DIRECTING THE CITY ADMINISTRATOR AND CITY LOBBYIST TO WORK WITH ALL RELEVANT STATE AND FEDERAL ELECTED OFFICIALS TO (A) DEVELOP AND RATIFY AN AMENDMENT TO THE UNITED STATES CONSTITUTION TO REPLACE THE ELECTORAL COLLEGE WITH A NATIONAL POPULAR VOTE FOR PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES OR, ALTERNATIVELY, TO APPROVE THE NATIONAL POPULAR VOTE INTERSTATE COMPACT, (B) ADDRESS GERRYMANDERING IN CONGRESSIONAL APPORTIONMENT BY REQUIRING REDISTRICTING REFORM, SUCH AS BY HAVING INDEPENDENT STATE REDISTRICTING COMMISSIONS CONDUCT REDISTRICTING INSTEAD OF STATE LEGISLATURES, AND (C) ELIMINATE BARRIERS TO VOTING WHEREAS, as provided by Article II of the United States Constitution, the President and Vice President are selected by the Electoral College, comprised of a slate of Electors from each state and the District of Columbia, with each state having a number of Electors equal to its number of congresspersons (total Representatives plus two Senators) and the District of Columbia having three Electors; and WHEREAS, U.S. citizens casting votes in the general election for a presidential candidate are actually not directly voting for that candidate but instead vote for a slate of Electors in their state representing the candidate, with the Republican and Democratic parties each nominating full slates for each state, and that, therefore, what determines the outcome of the presidential election is which candidate obtains a majority of Electors (currently 270 out of a total 538); and WHEREAS, the State of California is one of three states with the lowest per capital representation in the state and the Electoral College system results in voters in states with larger populations choosing a smaller number of Electors relative to their population while voters in states with smaller populations choose a greater number of Electors relative to their population, such that, using a 2008 comparison as an example, California's estimated population of 36,756,666 contrasted with its 55 Electors equals 668,303 people per Elector whereas North Dakota's population of 641,481 contrasted with its 3 Electors equals 213,827 people per Elector, meaning that Californians had less than one-third as much per capita representation in the Electoral College as North Dakotans; and WHEREAS, in our most recent presidential election and for the second time in 16 years, the candidate who received the most votes by U.S. citizens did not 'win' the election; and WHEREAS, Hillary Clinton lost the 2016 presidential election to Donald Trump, even though Mrs. Clinton received over 2.5 million more votes than Mr. Trump, and A1 Gore lost the 2000 presidential election to George W. Bush, even though Mr. Gore received over 500,000 more votes than Mr. Bush; and WHEREAS, prior to the 2016 and 2000 presidential elections, there have been only three other occasions in U.S. history where the candidate who received the most votes by U.S. citizens did not win the election, all of which occurred prior to the 20th century; and WHEREAS, the present method of electing the president and vice president of the United States contradicts the principle of "one person, one vote," which the United States Supreme Court established in Reynolds v. Sims (1964) under the Constitution's Equal Protection Clause; and WHEREAS, the method of electing United States Senators and Representatives, state governors and legislators, and local officials is by popular vote of the people within the corresponding state, municipal jurisdiction, or district; and WHEREAS, the Electoral College system has led to the phenomenon of the voters in "swing states" determining the outcome of the presidential contest, with a majority of national voters, those in "spectator states" such as California, essentially having no clout because candidates know that the outcomes in those states are already decided, such that, according to analysis conducted by National Popular Vote, two-thirds of the 2016 general election presidential campaign events were held in just six states (Florida, North Carolina, Pennsylvania, Ohio, Virginia, and Michigan) and 94% of such events were held in 12 states; and WHEREAS, the United States is the only current example in the world where a country elects their executive president indirectly rather via a popular national vote; and WHEREAS, the Electoral College is an antiquated and inherently undemocratic system that has no place in a modern democracy and numerous groups and commentators are now calling for replacing the Electoral College with a national popular vote; and WHEREAS, abolishing the Electoral College requires a Constitutional amendment, governed by Article V of the Constitution, which calls for both houses of the United States Congress to pass by a two-thirds vote a proposal that is subsequently sent to the states for ratification, either by state legislatures or conventions within the states, by a three-fourths vote of the states; and -2- WHEREAS, Massachusetts State Senator Eric Lesser is filing a Resolution to have the State of Massachusetts support a constitutional amendment to replace the Electoral College with direct election of the president; and WHEREAS, U.S. Senators Barbara Boxer and Dianne Feinstein have introduced legislation to abolish the Electoral College, S. J. Res. 41,114th Cong. (2016) ("Proposing an amendment to the Constitution of the United States to abolish the electoral college and to provide for the direct popular election of the President and Vice President of the United States"); and WHEREAS, the National Popular Vote Interstate Compact is an agreement among a group of states and the District of Columbia to award all of their respective electoral votes to whichever presidential candidate wins the overall national popular vote, with eleven states currently having joined, including California as of 2011, and the Interstate Compact would go into effect among participating states only after they collectively represent a majority of Electoral College votes (currently at least 270), providing a potential path to empowering a national popular vote for election of the president that avoids the challenging requirements for passing a constitutional amendment; and WHEREAS, the U.S. Congressional Redistricting process that occurs every ten years to reflect changes in population has been corrupted by extensive, partisan gerrymandering, leading to undemocratic control of Congress by one political party; and WHEREAS, various publications, such as the book "Ratf**ked: The True Story Behind the Secret Plan to Steal America's Democracy," authored by David Daley, have decribed in extensive detail the history of congressional gerrymandering in the United States, such as how the Redistricting Majority Project, created in 2010 when 27 state legislatures, the Presidency, and both Houses of Congress were Democrat controlled, was used to target Democrats with negative attack ads where their majorities were thin, increasing Republican control to a total of 25 state legislatures in advance of the 2011 redistricting, when states such as Pennsylvania and Michigan were given some extremely distorted, gerrymandered congressional district maps facilitating Republican gains in Congress; and WHEREAS, in recent years, the large number of seats controlled by the majority political party in the House of Representatives has been disprotionate to the national popular vote for their candidates for the House, due in part to gerrymandered districts, with the Republican control-of-seats:receipt-of-the-popular vote ratio in recent elections being 55.6%:51.7% (2010), 53.8% :47.6% (2012), 56.8%:51.2% (2014), and, based on current data, 55.3%:50.1% (2016); and WHEREAS, under current rules, voters have limited choice in who they elect for Congress, with the overwhelming majority of incumbents re-elected each year, and most with noncompetitive margins greater than 10%, despite historically low approval ratings for Congress; and WHEREAS, organizations such as FairVote and Common Cause have proposed various reforms to prevent politicians from drawing districts to give themselves or their party an unfair advantage, such as requiring each state to have an independent redistricting commission, not -3- state legislatures, draw the lines of congressional districts and their respective state legislative districts, similar tothe California Citizens Redistricting Commission, which was established by Proposition 11 (November 2008) and given the responsibility of drawing congressional district boundaries by Proposition 20 (November 2010); and WHEREAS, California and 11 other states have involved bipartisan commissions in their redistricting processes, as they seek to reduce the potential for state legislatures to abuse their power to draw districts; and WHEREAS, the turnout in presidential elections is consistently under 60% of eligible voters; and WHEREAS, there have been numerous efforts around the country at the federal, state, and local level to use mechanisms and tactics to deliberately suppress voter registration and turnout, especially targeting communities of color and the poor, with some of these impediments to voting including requiring photo identification, requiring proof of citizenship, rolling back early
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